


As Yet Unnamed Vorkosigan Story

by Voraronov



Category: Vorkosigan Saga - Lois McMaster Bujold
Genre: Canon Compliant, Gen, Some canon characters referenced in text
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-05-05
Updated: 2021-01-19
Packaged: 2021-03-03 01:02:06
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 13,563
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24026299
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Voraronov/pseuds/Voraronov
Summary: Michel Vortomas, poet and town clown finds his life rudely inteupted during a rather good meal. Not only would more be spoilers but I'll be honest I have no idea where this story is going at all.
Comments: 64
Kudos: 39





	1. A Rather Pleasant Lunch Interrupted

**Author's Note:**

> This is my first attempt at fanfiction so there may be some teething issues with formatting, posting, tagging and overall artistic quality.

Looking back Michel Vortomas should have been suspicious that Alexander Vorwyn had invited him to lunch at such short notice. But Alexander, Alex to his friends amongst which Michel aspired to be counted, was always such good company and the Lancer’s Club was famous for the best meat dumplings in the capital.

Unlike the other service clubs which clustered around the Old Square the Lancer’s was situated close to the Caravanserai district. It had originally been founded in the last decade of the Time of Isolation by a dissolute group of junior Imperial Cavalry officers seeking somewhere to pursue their ‘interests’ away from the prying eyes of their superiors.

‘All the better to be closer to sin than to virtue,’ Byerly Vorrutyer had quipped once and gone on to explain that during the Cetagandan occupation the club had, ironically, fulfilled much the same function for young Ghem officers far from home.

‘It’s said,’ Byerly had said. ‘That many of the same staff who worked during the occupation continued on as if nothing had changed. Except perhaps the food.’ Byerly had pointed out a particularly vivid painting of a male nude that adorned the wall near their table and said that it had been painted by one of those young officers.

‘He does look like he wants to go home,’ Michel had said and Byerly had laughed and shook his head and complained that, considering he was a poet, Michel was an aesthetic dead loss.

God, Michel missed Byerly since his exile – especially when his funds were low and fine dining in short supply. And funds had been particularly low recently - another reason to accept Alex Vorwyn’s invitation. Despite his reputation.

‘I had a professor at university,’ said Alex after the soup course. ‘Who believed that our beloved Barrayar had been poised on the cusp of fundamental social change just prior to the Cetagandan invasion.’ He dabbed his mouth with his napkin. He was a heavy set man with a wide honest face with unusually fair hair and blue eyes. Reputedly he was handsome enough to turn male and female heads alike although Michel had never been very good at judging such things. After university he’d joined the service for one of the new short enlistments but had declined to re-enlist and had instead joined the vaporous cloud of young ‘chaps’ that floated around the fringes of High Vor society. A town clown as Michel’s father would have put it – so it was just as well he was no longer around to pass comment.

Mind you Michel’s da would have cheerfully labelled his son as a town clown if he hadn’t preferred ‘disappointment’ – except that last time in the hospital. That had been an unusual conversation and Michel was still unsure how to fulfil his Father’s last command.

‘Surely all societies constantly stand on the brink of social change,’ said Michel. ‘Things are always moving.’

Alex snorted and looked pleased.

‘Good answer,’ he said. ‘But then you read political economy at University didn’t you?’

‘History,’ said Michel. ‘But I did write my thesis on social change in the antebellum period.’ Of which there was a great deal of physical evidence, including much of the old town, but infuriating gaps in the record where the Cetagandan’s had destroyed or confiscated documentation. ‘Paper,’ Professor Vorsmyth had once observed, ‘is a distressingly fragile medium.’

She’d pointed out that while we could still walk the streets and boulevards of Vorbarr Sultana and count the pock marks from small arms fire we often didn’t know who was shooting at who - let alone why.

Alex had a reputation for being a radical reformist and the exact line between radical reform and treason was known only to Impsec who no doubt calibrated the distinction to suit their own purposes. And while it was true that people were no longer publicly snatched out of their homes for an all expenses holiday at a South Continent re-education facility that could just mean, as Byerly had once pointed out, merely that Impsec had grown subtler in its approach.

Michel’s family had been on the wrong side of history frequently enough that he wasn’t at all too keen to test the boundaries – no matter the excellence of the Lancer’s meat dumplings. A change of subject was called for.

‘Is it true that Isabella is back from Beta Colony,’ he asked and was gratified by the way Alex’s eyes lit up.

‘Last week,’ he said. ‘And contrary to rumour without any radical changes to her appearance.’ There had been rumours that the famous singer had planned to pull a Dono and start her latest reinvention as a man.

Alex leant forward and lowered his voice. ‘At least,’ he said. ‘Nothing visible on the outside.’

‘Do tell?’ asked Michel – Alex’s ability to ferret out the latest gossip was almost as legendary as Byerly’s had been.

‘Adjustments to her throat, larynx and lung capacity,’ said Michel touching his chest. ‘Vastly improved ranged, as I heard, bass to soprano.’ He glanced over Michel’s shoulder. ‘Curious.’

Michel turned to look.

Over the heads of the other diners he saw an old man in a house uniform of sky blue with white trim talking to the Maître d’ by the entrance. Michel recognised the colours as belonging to the famously impoverished Count Vorfolse which meant that old man could only be his one and only Armsman.

‘Now there’s something you don’t see everyday,’ said Alex.

The Count had spent three decades not engaging with Vorbarr Sultana’s political or social whirr which made the sudden appearance of his Armsman at such a scurrilous address as the Lancer’s an immediate source of interest.

‘I wonder who he’s looking for?’ asked Michel.

It was out of the question the Armsman would be here for his own refreshment but equally unlikely that he might be making a reservation for his Lord. Not withstanding the fact that Vorfolse wasn’t so old that he eschewed the use of a comconsole when booking restaurants.

‘Interesting,’ said Alex as the Armsman started over in their direction.

Michel watched in growing crogglement as the old man approached their table and waited politely as Michel turned in his chair to face him.

The Armsman was white haired and had a dark southern complexion, brown eyes and an unbelievably wrinkled face. He had walked slowly, carefully, like a man grown used to aching joints now he stood at attention back held ramrod straight by his sense of duty or, possibly, some kind of medical brace.

‘My Lord Count,’ said the old man.

‘I rather think you are mistaken Armsman,’ said Michel. ‘I am nobody’s count.’

‘’I’m afraid there’s no mistake sir,’ said the Armsman. ‘The late Count Vorfolse named you his heir last week before entering hospital.’

‘Good God,’ said Alex. ‘Michel? Is this possible?’

Michel thought over the family tree which like that of all Vor was as tangled a strangle vine – and about as poisonous. He was a relation through both his parents to the Vorfolse family and certainly the Vortomases were nominally part of the clan that Vorfolses were traditionally considered the chiefs of. A relationship fractured by amongst other things being on opposite sides in the last three civil wars. Didn’t Old Vorfolse have a living son, two living sons in fact and grandsons to boot.

‘Has something happened to Pyotr?’ asked Michel.

‘I’m afraid Lord Pyotr has declined the honour my Lord,’ said the Armsman. ‘I believe his wife raised objections.’

‘To be a countess,’ said Alex. ‘Seriously?’

‘She’s a prole from the South Continent,’ said Michel who remembered the scandal well. ‘Now something high powered in some Komarran industrial combine – is that right?’

‘President of the Sergyar Division of Toscane Aerospace,’ said the Armsman whose name Michel had finally dredged from his memory was Kemp.

‘Does she have share options?’ asked Alex.

‘Quite extensive ones,’ said Kemp.

‘Then I suppose in her position becoming a countess would be a demotion,’ said Alex.

Michel felt as if the chair he was in had started tipping slowly backwards and he was flailing for a handhold to stop himself falling. Yes! Pyotr hadn’t been the only one who’d left the planet.

‘What about David?’ he asked.

‘Lady Davina has made her intention to stay on Escobar plain,’ said Kemp.

‘Oh,’ said Alex. ‘I definitely heard about that scandal.’

‘But,’ said Michel desperately but found, ironically, that he didn’t have a follow up clause.

‘If may interject my Lord,’ said Kemp. ‘There are others whose claims to the countship are as valid as your own however they are moot since Lord Vorfolse chose you as his heir. Which by both tradition and legal precedent makes you the true and legitimate Lord Count Vortomas.’

Michel waited futilely for his brain to provide him with something other than the inarticulate choking noise his mouth insisted on making.

‘The Letter of Intent and Patrimony was filed at Vorhartung Castle and your rightful claim to the countship was recognised upon notification of the Count’s passing this morning,’ said Kemp. ‘You became Count upon the Old Count’s last breath and will remain so until your own death or overthrow..’

Good old Barryaran Customary Law, thought Michel. Where the mystic bonds of Lordship and oaths of fealty travel faster than the speed of light and a man’s word was his bond. God he was going to have to swear fealty to the Emperor, in person!

‘Yes Kemp,’ said Michel. ‘But why did he choose me? Do you know?’

‘He was a great admirer of your poetry my Lord,’ said Kemp. ‘Especially the humorous verses.’

From a very long long way away Michel heard Alex calling the waiter.

‘Andre,’ he said. ‘Count Vortomas is in need of a brandy – a large one. 


	2. Admiral In A Box

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Michel wakes up in a strange room and tries to come to terms with his changed circumstances while at least enjoying a hearty Barrayan breakfast.

Michel woke up in a strange bed in a strange room with a very familiar hangover. He had less time than he would have liked to orientate himself before, what felt like a, litre of brandy drove him into the, thankfully, en suite bathroom.

Given the close up look he was getting at the lav he had to admit it was a very nice one. It had a real Terran derived mahogany seat and a self-cleaning system that was barely taxed by his five or so minutes of projectile vomiting.

The sink was an attractive white and rose veined ceramic, not quite marble but certainly high end. The sort of thing one found in the houses of professional proles – or at least the ones with aspirations to gentility. Michel, who’d nursed hangovers in much less salubrious places set the tap to cold and drank as much icy water as he could until his lips started to freeze. More water applied to his face and scalp brought the bathroom into clearer focus. It was clean and lined with sky blue tiles to waist height and white water resistant paint to the ceiling. The lighting was tastefully defuse and the multi-function shower-bath at one end was integrated into the colour scheme.

He’d have assumed that someone, probably Alex, had blagged them into an expensive hotel except the neat jar of expensive depilatory cream, the bottle scented aftercare and the expensive cream coloured soap were unsealed. Only the six pack of disposable teeth cleaners were still sealed in a packet.

This, Michel realised, was the old Count’s bathroom which meant…

Michel went back into the bedroom. Subconsciously Michel had assumed that the old Count had lived in musty fading squalor. There should have been cobwebs or at the very least the relics of a bygone age and a layer of dust. Not this light airy room with its thick pile cream carpet, elegant matching cream and pale-yellow wallpaper and wide picture window overlooking Vorbinksi Boulevard and the park beyond.

It was Michel decided a much better appointed bedroom than he was used to. There was a bound to be catch somewhere.

With that in mind he staggered back into the bathroom, used the lav for its designated purpose, stripped off, climbed into the multifunction shower-bath and slapped his hand on the full automated wash setting that was universally known throughout the Galactic nexus as the ‘Hangover Button’ and tried to come awake enough to formulate an escape plan. Nothing, alas, came to mind.

Afterwards he returned to the bedroom to find his good suit, the one he only wore for recitals, laid out on the bed. Likewise his good shoes, the black lace ups sat on a wooden shoe rack at the end of the bed. On the comconsole desk by the window was a silver tray upon which a large glass of black tea steamed gently. On a small plate were two white ovals which Michel initially took for mints but on further examination proved to be hangover pills – which he had to admit made more sense.

No doubt this was Kemps work although, Michel did wonder, who had told the Armsman that he preferred tea to coffee in the morning? When he sipped the tea it was unmistakably an import from Old Earth.

Ah, he thought, herein lies the difference between your common or garden impoverished vor and your actual genuine impoverished count.

*

The apartment was large enough to include a breakfast room adjacent to the kitchen with windows that looked east to catch the morning sun. There Michel found Alex waiting for him at the round blonde wood table with a bowl of coffee in one hand and a portable reader in the other.

‘Feeling better?’ he asked as Michel sat down.

Alex looked terribly clean and freshly laundered and Michel wondered if he’d stayed the night.

‘No,’ said Alex when Michel asked. ‘Having seen you safely to your new home I assisted the good armsman in collecting your belongings from your old digs.’

Kemp, who obviously doubled as cook and server, bustled in with a steaming bowl of groats and another tall glass of black tea.

‘Will there be anything else my Lord?’ asked Kemp.

‘Thank you Kemp,’ said Michel with a strange feeling of detachment – as if he were repeating lines from a holovid. A cheap historical melodrama at that. Any moment now, he thought, my long lost half brother is going to burst in and demand satisfaction over my ravishment of our beautiful cousin.

He realised that Alex was still talking.

‘But I awoke early and came straight here to see how you were doing.’

‘I’m grateful for the concern,’ said Michel who was frankly astonished at this level of attention – or perhaps not – after all he was a count now.

‘How often do countships change hands,’ said Alex as if reading his mind and turned the reader so that Michel could see the screen. On it were a selection of headlines from newsfeeds, local, planetwide and, Michel saw with alarm, galactic. His face and that of the late Count Votfolse were prominent.

Where had they got that image of him with the ponytail, wondered Michel – he’d only worn his hair like that for one semester at University. One of the articles did at least refer to him as a ‘noted poet’ which made a nice change from wastrel.

The groats were the real thing, not instant, and served with cream, winter berries and honey. Not the way he normally ate them but a little voice in his head was shrilly warning him that there was no chance this good fortune would last so he made himself slow down and savour of the rich taste.

‘When was the last time you went to the district?’ asked Alex.

‘I’ve never been,’ said Michel and sipped his tea. ‘I was born here and father had rather cut his ties to the district. He never said why or talked about the old place. There’s no other immediate family that I’m close to although when you’re Vor there’s always cousins of one remove or another.’

‘Definitely always cousins,’ said Alex ruefully shaking his head. ‘I’m sure they’ll be lining up to greet you when you arrive.’

‘Arrive where?’

‘Port Vorfolse Dusharm,’ said Alex.

Vorfolse Dusharm – the District Capital, his capital now, thought Michel and his groats suddenly tasted very strange on his tongue.

‘I’m sure can put that off for a while,’ he said.

‘I’m afraid not my Lord Count,’ said Kemp materialising by the table like a Winterfair Ghost. ‘It is your duty to escort the late Count home – as was his request.’

Well, Michel thought, that seems reasonable enough and I was going to have to visit sooner or later. If I am count I will be expected to put in an appearance and meet the people who really ran the District. Somebody must be taking care of administration down there because the late Count Vorfolse had famously avoided that task.

He was just wondering whether he could follow that example when another, less pleasant thought, struck him.

‘Kemp,’ he said. ‘Where exactly is the late count now?’

‘In the drawing room my Lord.’

*

There was a coffin shaped box resting suspended from trestles in the middle of the drawing room. What was obviously a memetic plastic shell had been set the house colours of sky blue with white trim save for a yellow and black warning flash on the side trailed by the words – Low Temperature Storage: Warning - Not suitable for medical use.

Two large district flags, a sky blue cross on a white background, hung suspended from grav assisted display bars at either end of the room. Only the flags had obviously been intended for use in a larger room with a higher ceiling and the bottom third of each flag pooled untidily on the drawing room floor.

‘Ah yes,’ said Alex when he joined Michel in contemplating the casket. ‘The good old Non-Medical Cryogenic Storage Unit, Human Compatible 7864. When you couldn’t do a cryofreeze but you wanted to get the old man back to his family in a fit condition for a state funeral.’ He rapped the top of the casket which rang with a metallic bong. ‘IS12 and up, not for the enlisted man. We used to call them AIBs – Admiral In a Box.’

Kemp coughed discreetly.

‘Apologies armsman,’ said Alex.

Michel turned to Kemp who somehow managed to be standing even more at attention now he was in the presence of his old count. His old friend, Alex thought, it was a well-known fact that old armsmen often became closer to their counts than the count’s own family. Michel had never felt less like intruding on someone else’s private grief and wondered whether he could duck out of the funeral or, at the very least, the grim prospect of escorting him south.

I don’t have to go, he thought. I’m count aren’t I? Surely I can justify staying in the capital for a time, enough to put my affairs in order. A week perhaps, a fortnight, perhaps even a month. Yes a month to fully prepare and then a trip south.

He realised Kemp had coughed discreetly again – possibly more than once.

‘Yes?’

‘You have received several communications sir,’ said Kemp.

‘From whom?’

‘From a number of your peers my Lord,’ said Kemp.

‘The counts are keen to meet you it seems,’ said Alex. ‘Politics is off to an early start.’

‘How many counts,’ asked Michel. ‘Exactly?’

‘Fifty eight my Lord,’ said Kemp.

All but two of the sixty counts.

‘Who are the missing counts.

‘Count Vorbarra for one,’ said Kemp. That Countship was held by the Emperor and no doubt any summons from him would come as an Imperial request instead. ‘The other absentee was Lord Vorkosigan.’

Thank heavens for small mercies although it was possible that the famously insane trouble magnet was off auditing someone somewhere.

‘They’ll be calling in person soon enough,’ said Alex.

‘But we’re in mourning,’ said Michel clutching at straws. They were all going to want something, alliances, economic deals, water concessions – unpaid debts? Certainly he wasn’t going to see anyone until he’d had a chance to look at the books.

‘The perfect excuse,’ said Alex with a grin. ‘They’ll be here to pay their respects.’

‘Can’t we turn them away?’

‘You’re a potential vote up for grabs,’ said Alex. ‘I’d expect them to be persistent.’

‘Oh god,’ said Michel.

He stared for a long moment at what he decided to think of as ‘the coffin’ and thought through his options. Michel had never done anything momentous in his life but working poets are by necessity hustlers and you didn’t get far on the Vorbarr Sultana coffee house circuit without being quick on your feet.

If his fellow counts planned to use his late predecessor as an excuse to visit then surely the best thing would be to remove the Count that was, and himself, from the city.

‘Kemp,’ he said. ‘How were you planning to get the late Count home?’

‘By monorail,’ my Lord.

‘Not a lift van?’

‘The late Count preferred not to fly,’ said Kemp. ‘He specified the monorail in his last wishes. He felt it would be more dignified.’

‘Very well Kemp,’ said Michel. ‘If you could make arrangements to travel south at the earliest possible opportunity…’

‘If I might interject my Lord,’ said Kemp. ‘I took the liberty of booking you and the late count on the nine thirty-six from Southgate Station. The hearse should arrive shortly – would my Lord like to travel in that or prefer that I order an autotaxi.’

‘The hearse Kemp,’ said Michel. ‘Let see if any dare beard me in a hearse.’

‘Do you mind if I come along?’ said Alex.

‘To the station? Certainly be my guest.’

‘To the district,’ said Alex. ‘I think this could very entertaining and I also I feel it is my vorish duty to help a friend through difficult times.’

‘You’ll have to ride in the hearse,’ said Michel.

‘But of course,’ said Alex.


	3. Principle Export

Michel’s fears that a count, or more likely his representative, might fling themselves in front of the hearse proved groundless and the trip to Southgate Station proved uneventful or at least it was - until the end. They’d entered through the freight loading bay, a drear plastcrete box tucked away behind the passenger entrance and driven up the ramp that gave access to the rear of platform.

All the better, according to Alex, to avoid importuning counts and the news media. Unfortunately they then had to walk beside the coffin to their private carriage inconveniently located at the front of the train.

‘Blast,’ said Alex under his breath. ‘I’d forgotten about that.’

They managed their impromptu parade, past ranks of curious proles, with some dignity until they were almost at their carriage when Alex suddenly stumbled, fell and grabbing wildly dragged Michel down with him.

They fell in an undignified heap in the gap between the coffin and the monorail and when Michel attempted to scramble up Alex told him to stay down.

‘Think of the cameras,’ he said. ‘All those plebs who caught that on their wrist coms.’

‘It’s too late to worry about that now,’ said Michel.

‘But consider the optics,’ said Alex. ‘If we obviously fall down and then pop up straight away some sad prole in his father’s attic somewhere will loop us to some amusing piece of music and you, dear Count, will be instantly famous in all the wrong ways.’

‘Which piece of music?’

Alex had to think about that.

‘Palinksi’s _March of the Victorious Heroes_ ,’ said Alex

‘Ow,’ said Michel – it was a popular march with proles and more often known as the _March of the Drunken Vors_ – circuses used it to introduce their clown acts. ‘So how long do we stay down?’

‘We don’t,’ said Alex. ‘We slide the late count down the platform until we can slip in the carriage door.’

And that is what they did – it was undignified but as Alex pointed out it was _invisibly_ undignified. Still Michel couldn’t help humming the _March of Drunken Vors_ while taking his seat in the passenger section of the private carriage.

The seats were large but disappointingly shabby and the imitation wood finish of the tables and the window surrounds were scuffed and marked.

‘You’re paying for the privacy not the opulence,’ said Alex when Michel pointed this out.

Alex’s wrist com pinged twice – which he ignored.

‘It does have a proper wait service,’ he said. ‘Not one of those dreadful automated trolleys.’

*

The original defensive wall and gate, from which Southgate station had taken its name, was long gone replaced by a star fort in the later part of the time of isolation. This had been modified at the end of that period to incorporate the original railway station but by the time the old metal ground rails were replaced by the sleek new technology imported from newly conquered Komarr the movement for historical preservation was in full swing. The preservationists demanded that not only should the Southgate Fort suffer no further damage but that much of the old railway station should be kept as well. As a result, unlike the graceful high-level platforms that adorned the Eastgate and Prince Serg stations the line from Southgate sloped up to emerge between the outstretched demilunes to fly gracefully over the glacis and the free fire zone beyond. Then through an area formerly given over to heavy industry and now being colonised by the ‘exciting and innovatively’ shaped housing that looked to Michel as if someone had emptied out a box full of brightly coloured children’s blocks from a great height.

No doubt future generations of the Movement for Historical Preservation would fight to preserve them in their turn.

Then the monorail was accelerating out across the wide completely terraformed plain that formed the breadbasket of the Vorbarr District and ultimately the original source of the Emperor’s power.

Michel watched the neatly cultivated fields and dormitory villages slip past and marvelled at the amount of useless information he’d retained from his university days.

_It’s a Barrayaran curse_ , he thought, _no matter how fast we run towards the future we still carry old man misery on our backs - reminding us of our mistakes._

_And urging us to drink. Let’s not forget that._

The wait service Alex had promised never materialised instead Kemp emerged from the forward compartment to ask whether my lord would care for some refreshment.

‘Just tea,’ said Michel. ‘And I would like to see the accounts now?’

‘My Lord?’ said Kemp in a tone of studied neutrality. Like many of his generation of Vor Michel had opted out of the military service that had once been all but obligatory for men of ‘good’ families but he was still a Barrayaran and recognised that particular response.

‘Surely as the late Count’s most trusted liegeman he will have left the relevant access codes with you?’ said Michel. ‘Come now, this has to be done sooner or later.’

‘All the accounts my Lord?’ said Kemp in the same tone his ancestors might have asked their Vor superior officer if they really wanted to charge that particular entrenched position.

Professora Vorthys had once given a very entertaining lecture on the historical relationship between the Vor officer class and their subordinates. She’d used just that hypothetical situation, of an unwise charge into certain death, to illustrate the complexities of the relationship.

When one of her students asked what happened if the Vor insisted the Professora had said that being Barrayaran the enlisted ranks would indeed carry out the attack.

‘But not before ensuring that the Vor officer in question led the charge in person,’ she’d said and quoted a poem from ancient Earth. The poetry had stuck in Michel’s mind at least.

‘If you wouldn’t mind Armsman,’ said Michel

‘I wouldn’t have thought you a bean counter,’ said Alex after Kemp had vanished back into the forward compartment. ‘I thought you a more _devil-may-care_ sort of fellow.’

‘One can only be truly feckless,’ said Michel. ‘When one is unburdened by financial worry. I’ve learnt to keep an eye on my own finances if only to know when to stop drinking each month.’

Alex gave Michel a long appraising look.

‘Ah,’ he said finally. ‘Interesting.’

Kemp returned shortly with a trolly ladened with tea, coffee and a cake stand adorned with sandwiches, small cakes and a selection of fresh fruit.

_I could really get used to this_ , thought Michel and then Kemp pulled a briefcase out from the bottom of the trolly and set it before him.

It was a secure courier’s case in an evil drab olive colour that opened to reveal serried ranks of data discs – all carefully labelled in a neat but spidery hand.

‘The late Count preferred to keep his business off the planetary web,’ said Kemp. ‘He had doubts about its security.’

Michel eyed the discs with foreboding.

_Was there a man dismayed?_ he thought. _Oh well into the valley of death_ ,

*

In the end Michel avoided the district accounts and concentrated on the Count’s household instead. It was grim reading. The more so since technically it was his money now. It was a well-known fact that Count Vorfolse had run his modest household off what he earnt renting out the original Vorfolse House – a classic late Time of Isolation pile in what was now known, by certain wags, as Parvenu Plaza. It was a matter of custom and tradition that a Count’s personal household should be financed by the revenue from their own personal holdings. During the Time of Isolation this meant useful, that is terraformed, land, during the time of Ezar it meant heavy industry and in these modern times - Galactic standard technology, services and finance. The last explaining the current fad for Counts marrying Komarran heiresses – although Empress Laisa might have had something to do with that.

Still even Counts who weren’t directly involved in off world manufacturing, biotech and Galactic trade finance at least had an extensive share portfolio in the same. And land, that old reliable standby, was still a valuable resource if managed correctly.

To his surprise Michel found Count Vorfolse had none of these – not even land.

Well there was a house in Vorfolse du Sharm, a hunting lodge in the central marshes and what was described as a ‘summer retreat’ on the coast. All of them listed in the accounts as ‘dormant’ with a minimal outlay for maintenance and upkeep.

So really it was just the house in Vorbarr Sultana.

Still by Michel’s standards one could live splendidly on the rent of that single house in one of the most expensive neighbourhood of the most expensive city in the Empire.

Old Vorfolse had been famously loath to make a decision on any subject that came up in the Council of Counts, nor was he famous for the kind of back room deals that greased the wheels of commerce and industry. Quite the opposite in fact. Since as far as Michel knew Vorfolse’s District hadn’t gone bankrupt he assumed that it was perfectly capable of running itself.

All he had to do is swear allegiance, stay out of trouble and write poetry.

But one doesn’t grow up High Vor, especially one who studied the Bloody Centuries at University without looking for the catch, the mutant in the grass – the knife in the back.

He looked up to find Alex watching him again – a strange intent expression on his face that vanished so quickly that Michel wasn’t sure he hadn’t imagined it.

‘You look like a man who could do with a drink,’ he said.

*

Despite the hour a brandy or even a whiskey would have suited Michel quite well but the imaginary itch between his shoulder blades made him cautious. So he settled instead for a light South Continent pinot noir that would keep him amused without impairing his ability to dive for cover.

He suggested that Kemp, who seemed to have been on duty for an ungodly number of hours, might want to take a rest.

_After all we want him fresh for the worst case scenario._

‘As you wish My Lord,’ said Kemp.

‘Rumour is,’ said Alex once Kemp had gone. ‘That he doesn’t sleep.’

‘Who? Kemp?

‘Marine Commando don’t you know,’ said Alex. ‘Copped it during the ground invasion of Escobar. Rumour has it the Escos practically rebuilt him to test some of their experimental medical techniques.’

‘Rumour?’

‘Presumably ImpMill know the truth of it but you know ImpMill,’ said Alex. ‘Or rather, luckily for you, you don’t.’ Alex nodded towards the forward compartment. ‘You could always ask him.’

‘I’m not sure I want to know,’ said Michel. ‘I’ve always tried to avoid the troubles of others.’

‘I thought poets were supposed to be sensitive?’

‘Only in historical dramas,’ said Michel. ‘There are many cultures where the poet’s job was to insult their nation’s enemies in extemporised verse.’

‘I think you’ll find that was old Ezar’s Ministry of Communications,’ said Alex.

‘That was prose,’ said Michel. ‘So it doesn’t count.’

Outside the ground rumpled up into low hills streaked with patches of ochre where native Barrayaran flora maintained their grip on the planet. Clouds piled up against the eastern horizon flagging the distant mountains. Michel thought he could see a poem in that view – the transitory nature of the clouds, the permanence of the mountains – something something something – what?

Alex called his name and he realised he’d been asleep.

‘We’re almost at the transfer,’ he said.

Uhzur had been the South’s principle trading city from back when the caravans from Vorbarr Sultana met the river traffic coming up from the coast and the ores coming down from the mountains. Before the occupation it had become a railway town, during the occupation is had been famously surly but had continued to expand. Post occupation is had spread like a smoky grey carpet across the flood plain and it was still a major centre for industry and commerce. It was such a pity that it stood eight kilometres north of Vorfolse’s District.

Michel watched ranks of worker’s housing flying past the monorail and wondered gloomily how much revenue the city generated from education alone.

At the brand new grand central station with its magnificently insubstantial grav-assisted roof the chartered carriage detached from the rest of the train, lurched forward, then up, then swayed sideways onto a secondary track. Then they raced back the way they’d come to the main freight terminal located on Uhzur’s outskirts.

There they alighted onto a much more utilitarian plasticrete platform while Kemp saw to the unloading of the Count that was. The station buildings were equally utilitarian, low, windowless and presented the gritty brown of unsurfaced economy plasticrete.

A trio of men emerged from a cavernous doorway in one blank wall and briskly headed towards them. They were wearing the most unfashionable suits Michel had ever seen worn outside of a fancy-dress party. Cream coloured, broad shouldered, narrow waisted and with those vestigial epaulettes that his Da had favoured.

There was a strong smell of animal shit in the warm air – Michel hoped it wasn’t coming from their welcoming committee.

Their obvious leader was a tall hawk faced man with a fringe of white hair around a balding pate. He looked like he’d be at home wading amongst the famous marshes with the fabulous scarlet flamingos that were probably the districts one claim to fame. It didn’t come as that much of a surprise when he introduced himself as Gustav Fonikopteros.

‘I have the privilege,’ he said after bowing, ‘Of being the chairman of the District Steering Committee.’

_One who does not waste time before ingratiating himself with the new count_ , thought Michel and made a mental note to find out who the rest of the steering committee was.

‘Excellent,’ he said. ‘Thank you for coming to meet me.’

‘No trouble my Lord,’ said Fonikopteros. ‘No trouble at all. May I introduce these gentlemen?’

Michel inclined his head politely and was introduced to a large round man who looked ready to burst the buttons on his embroidered waistcoat who was the head controller of the district railway service. Michel shook his hand which felt surprisingly rough and calloused for an administrator. Perhaps he had a hobby. The third person was an amazingly languid young man whose fair hair contrasted strongly with his dark brown eyes.

‘Charles Vortomas,’ said Fonikopteros. ‘Who represents the Ranchers Association and I believe is a third cousin of yours.’

His handshake was also firm but his smile was rueful.

‘Once removed I’m afraid,’ he said.

‘Who keeps track of the details past second cousin these days?’ said Michel.

‘My mother for one,’ said Charles. ‘But that’s a different generation.’

‘That it is,’ said Alex.

Charles might have been about to say more but at that point Kemp walked solemnly past with the Count’s casket floating along behind him. It was flanked by a quartet of rough looking men in their late middle age all dressed in the fire, acid and temperature resistant one pieces that was the de facto uniform of the industrial prole. A sort of honour guard Michel realised and wondered by what criteria had they been selected.

He thought he might have seen a tear glistening on a withered cheek.

_How beloved was the count?_ he wondered. _I never heard that he did anything for the district but neglect it._

They watched in silence as the rough cortege headed down a gently sloping plasticrete ramp. Fonikopteros gestured after them.

‘Shall we my Lord,’ he said.

The smell of manure intensified as they followed the casket down. Either side of the ramp were low slung open sided plasticrete sheds. In their dim interiors Michel could see an intricate maze constructed of thick metal railings. The smell was definitely emanating from inside the sheds and a little bit more of his history degree dislodged from the far recesses of his brain and flagged for attention.

‘Do you ship live cattle from here?’ he asked.

‘Some my Lord,’ said Fonikopteros. ‘Although not nearly as much as when this facility was first built. The district was famous for its cattle rearing once and other districts would buy live animals and fatten them up on their own pastures.’

‘So mainly meat now?’ asked Alex.

‘Alas no,’ said Fonikopteros. ‘That has become a niche market as well.’

‘Vat meat,’ snorted Charles and looked like he wanted to spit.

‘Our principle export through here is still livestock derived though,’ said Fonikopteros.

‘Milk?’ asked Alex.

‘Some milk but only for specialist markets,’ said Fonikopteros. ‘You might say that what we produce is a little bit more down to earth.’ He gave a thin unconvincing smile.

Michel thought of the pervasive smell.

‘You don’t mean?’ said Michel.

‘Yes my lord,’ said Fonikopteros. ‘Much in demand for terraforming backcountry areas.’

‘Oh shit,’ said Michel.

‘Your principle export,’ said Alex brightly.


	4. Ask Not For Whom The Brass Band Plays

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Michel begins to wonder what exactly he's got himself into while Alex discovers a new taste in wine.

The railway had been built in the early years of the Dorcan Unification back in the days before refrigeration when Vorfolse cattle, and not just their by-products, were shipped as far afield as Vorpatril’s District in the north. It had been a miracle of engineering, the controller of railways had boasted, and given its age – the fact that it was still running was a miracle of preservation.

There had once been a splendid passenger transfer station in Uzhur but now people heading into the district got off the monorail at grand central and either caught the shuttle or the autobus. These days the railway was restricted to hauling consumer goods in one direction and Vorfolse’s District’s principle export in the other.

With one major exception.

‘The Count’s personal train,’ said Fonikopteros proudly.

It stood in the freight bay like a High Vor lady in a stockyard, which Michel supposed it was. Three archaic carriages and a brake van in an untarnished white and sky-blue livery with the morning sunlight flashing the silver scrollwork around the windows and doors.

Waiting by the train was a tall middle-aged man in a uniform consisting of blue flame-retardant dungarees and a matching jacket over a sky-blue shirt. A peaked cap was jammed over a mop of curly brown hair and there were soot smudges on his round face.

He was introduced as Alphonse Steliovski – master of the Count’s Personal Train and he actually bowed formerly at the introduction.

‘Welcome to the District my Lord,’ he said.

But it was not Steliovski or the sumptuous carriages that caught Michel’s eye but the locomotive that pulled the train.

‘Good god what is that?’ asked Michel when he saw it for the first time.

‘That,’ said Steliovski with obvious pride, ‘is Samantha.’

‘She’s certainly a big girl,’ said Alex.

She was certainly that, Modern locomotives were compact, even those that still ran on dual rails, electric engines small enough to be built into the floor of the driver’s cab with modern powerpacks distributed down the length of the train.

Samantha was as long as one of the carriages, a blunt cylinder festooned with wheels and pistons and brass pipes. Even at rest she grumbled and hissed – whisps of smoke rising from her chimney. She was a monstrous intrusion from an earlier time but Michel found himself strangely drawn by its solidity. By the way it drew the senses in a way the modern monorail did not.

‘She has drawn the Count’s train for over a hundred years,’ said Steliovski with mad pride.

Barrayar, thought Michel. Where tradition is king.

‘So is this a family thing?’ asked Michel.

‘My Lord?’ Steliovski was giving him a look of vague incomprehension that Michel was beginning to become familiar with.

‘Looking after Samantha,’ said Michel. ‘Is it something that runs in your family?’

‘Oh no,’ said Steliovski. ‘My father was a marketing manager for VBI Consumables - I grew up in Renewal in Vorbretton’s District.’

Vorbretton’s district was famously one of the most prosperous and socially enlightened on Barrayar. So Michel found he had to ask why in hell Steliovski had redistricted himself somewhere as backwards as, well, Michel’s district.

‘This is the last working steam railway in the world, possibly the last outside of Old Earth,’ said Steliovski his eyes taking on a fanatical sparkle. ‘Where else could I work on something as magnificent as Samantha.’

‘I see,’ said Michel fighting an urge to back away slowly. ‘Vorbretton’s loss is our gain.’

‘Absolutely my Lord,’ said Steliovski. ‘And if my Lord would like to board we can be off.’

‘Then certainly let us board,’ said Michel

 _Good god_ , he thought as Steliovski guided him and Alex back to the carriage. _I’m starting to talk like a bad historical drama – what’s next? An affair with my groom?_

Although first he’d have to acquire some horses – obviously.

*

Samantha certainly made a performance of their departure, hissing and clanking and lurching and puffing as they left the principle-export stained platforms of the freight terminal behind.

Unlike the shabby luxury of their chartered monorail carriage the Count’s train was almost too splendid. If you ignored the swaying gate of the carriage it was like sitting in a Time of Isolation drawing room complete with a marble topped credenza and matching cellarette from which a pair of white jacketed stewards served drinks and snacks.

Michel squirmed against the stuffed leather armchair, one of four arranged as a conversation group halfway down the carriage, and waved off an offer of wine. Instead he asked for tea, black, served with lemon. The itch between his shoulder blades had subsided to a strange light-headed feeling as if he were already drunk.

_And about to be rolled by a couple of false companions_ ,’ he thought.

Although that might be a slur on the character of Gustav Fonikopteros and Charles Vortomas who sat opposite Michel and Alex. They had also forsworn wine in favour of tea although Alex had eagerly perused the wine list and had ordered a bottle of a local red that he claimed should be both robust and invigorating. Michel found Alex’s refusal to be intimidated by the archaic flummery of the train comforting.

The stewards, all men he noticed, were attired not in the Vorfolse livery but in white jackets with brass buttons and an unfamiliar crest upon their breast. To fill an awkward gap in the conversation, and because they hadn’t appeared as a line item in the accounts, he asked about them.

‘They’re my employees,’ said Fonikopteros. ‘From the Hotel Luchshiy vid sur le Mer.’

‘You’re a hotelier?’ asked Michel which provoked a bark of laughter from Charles. Fonikopteros gave him withering look but quickly composed himself as he turned back to Michel.

‘I suppose I am,’ he said. ‘Amongst other things.’

Unlike the monorail Samantha ran slowly enough to allow Michel a good look at the landscape it traversed. Particularly when they emerged from a short tunnel to cross the valley of the Plasipo River by way of the kilometres long viaduct that briefly became a bridge in the middle. Sunlight glinted of the hundreds of small lakes and ponds that littered the flood plain.

‘Are those the famous wetlands?’ asked Alex.

‘No,’ said Charles. ‘Those are further downstream. This area floods in the winter but is dry in the summer. We fatten up the cattle down there and then move them to overwinter on the upland pastures.’ This only worked because they were this far south. ‘It rarely snows on the uplands.’

‘What’s that?’ asked Michel – he’d spotted lines of red crisscrossing the plain. It looked like native Barrayaran vegetation but the lines, while not straight, were in a far too regular pattern to be natural.

‘They segregate the herds from one another,’ said Charles. ‘It’s a technique that goes all the way back to the start of the time of isolation. The herdsmen in the valley learnt to incorporate native plants into their hedgerows. Saves on wire fencing and less maintenance then drystone walls.’

Cheaper and better because the Terran cattle instinctively shied away from the toxic native plants. Even goats, who were notorious for burrowing their way through any natural hedge couldn’t stomach them.

As they crossed the bridge proper across the brown width of the Plasipo Samantha gave two shrill whistles just before they reached the south bank. Then they plunged through a confusing welter of iron girders between which Michel glimpsed deserted platforms, awnings and brightly painted wooden buildings and far below the unmistakable crooked street pattern of an old Barrayaran town.

This was, Charles told them, the famous elevated station that served the town of Benevtin on the Plasipo. Whose water powered passenger and freight lifts had been yet another marvel of late time of isolation engineering.

‘The cattle loading facilities are located in the hills to the north and south,’ he said – making it clear what he thought was the most important aspect of the engineering. ‘If you’re really that interested you can get Steliovski to talk about it – that is if you have spare couple of weeks.’

‘Since we have broached the subject,’ said Fonikopteros. ‘I wonder if we might inquire as to your Lordship’s plans – with regards to the district.’

‘This wine has a quite extraordinary aftertaste,’ said Alex. ‘Where’s it from.’

For a moment a spasm of frustration passed across Fonikopteros’s face but he was careful to fight any irritation down as he politely turned his attention back to Alex. Michel suspected that they’d wanted to have him all to themselves for this journey and resented the intrusion. He wondered what they thought Alex and his relationship was? Something more than friends judging by the oleaginous way Fonikopteros explained the drink to Alex.

‘It’s been fortified with _colrouge_ ,’ said Fonikopteros. ‘It’s a local spirit made from,’ he paused to think about. ‘Goatsbane I believe.’

Michel was impressed – he’d never heard of anyone successfully making an alcoholic beverage from native plants before. Although God knows between the Russians, the Greeks, the French and the English the firsters had tried hard enough.

Alex expressed surprise and said that they should try selling it Vorbarr Sultana.

‘The proles will eat it up,’ he said. ‘There’s a whole cultural movement centred around a new appreciation for old Barrayar.’

‘Townies,’ said Charles spitting the word like a curse. ‘They don’t have to live with the bloody things poisoning their livelihood.’

‘It’s not toxic is it?’ asked Michel – Alex had put away at least three glasses.

‘No more than any other drink,’ said Fonikopteros.

Fonikopteros and Charles attempted to bring the conversation back to the business of the district two more times but Michel fended them off, once by asking irrelevant questions and the second time when he was genuinely struck dumb by the view outside the window.

Unlike the industrial exuberance of the viaduct across the Plasipo the railway crossed the Sham river at Nancray, the district’s second largest city, before paralleling its course south taking advantage of a low ridge to keep it above the wetlands. As a result the famous marshes were mostly hidden by rolling hills until the ground, and the railway, fell away towards the coast.

Charles was just explaining that the glittering patchwork of silver, green and red, was not really counted as the wetlands proper but rather the safe, tame annex west of the Sham when the train startled a flock of flamingos.

The huge scarlet birds launched themselves into the air – the beating of their wings loud enough to drown out Samantha and penetrate the interior of the carriage. Michel had known they grew to a size but he’d seen smaller ponies.

No Barrayaran, even one with as modern an education as Michel, would ever use the word mutation about someone’s home district – _but_ , thought Michel _, there is no way that is the original Terran phenotype – environmental factors notwithstanding._

‘Could you ride one?’ said Alex who had got up to press his face against the window.

Charles laughed.

‘Someone makes the attempt every year,’ he said. ‘But even if the bird doesn’t do them a mischief the power to weight ratio is not enough to carry an adult.’

Alex sighed and sat down.

‘Perhaps a breeding program then,’ he suggested.

Fonikopteros coughed and looked embarrassed. Judging from the way both he and Charles diverted the conversation to the Vorbarr Sultana poetry scene which, Michel guessed, they cared for not a whit – there was definitely a mutant in the compost heap on that subject.

The approach into Vorfolse Duchamp was by a wide curving causeway that doubled up as a dyke to keep the farmland in the west from re-joining the wetlands to the east. A modern plasticrete highway had recently been built alongside and Michel was perversely proud to see that Samantha was giving the big autolorries a run for their money.

The capital city of the Vorfolse district had originally been built on two elevations so meagre that they only counted as hills because they were surrounded by the flat and oily delta of the Sham river. The original Vorfolse castle stood on one hill while the rival castle raised by the Vortomas, Charles was happy to point out, had been slighted following one of the many internecine conflicts that had so enlivened the Bloody Centuries.

Tall whitewashed houses with red tiled roofs crowded the hills while the modern city radiated out on land reclaimed from the delta cut by canals. There was even a confused welter of buildings on stilts either side of the railway causeway. These were the colour of mud and roofed with plastic sheeting and corrugated iron.

‘Yes,’ said Fonikopteros grimly when he saw Michel staring. ‘We have slums.’

‘If only they would stay on the land where they belong,’ said Charles.

As Samantha slowed on the approach to the station Michel got a good look at the skinny kids running along rope bridges while weather beaten adults sat slumped on balconies or attended to god knew what chores on the rickety platforms built between the shanties.

Then they passed over a plasticrete levee and into the city proper.

To save on gradient the main railway station had been built inro the saddle between the two hills. Constructed of the same whitewashed stucco and brick as the old part of the town it had been built for a busier time with four platforms and a grand concourse pushing out towards the sea. Now there was only grass and weeds where three of the tracks had run and the doors and windows of waiting rooms and facilities were closed and shuttered.

As Samantha hissed and grumbled to a halt Michel distinctly heard a brass band strike up a slow mournful military refrain. He knew it had to be a live band because no professional recording would have allowed that many flat notes.

Still Michel couldn’t help but be relieved - he’d half expected them to break into the _March of the Drunken Vors_.

_They’re here for the old count not for you_ , he reminded himself.

Charles Vortomas and Gustav Fonikopteros respectfully rose to their feet.

‘My Lord?’ they said and waited for his next move.


	5. Chekhov's Soda Syphon

There had been crowds, a silent line of proles on either side of the road. From his vantage in the lumbering official groundcar slowly following the cortege Michel had watched them as their eyes tracked the gun carriage drawn by two white horses upon which the old count made the final leg of his journey home.

Michel hadn’t wanted to follow too hard on the heels of the coffin so he’d loitered a moment by the hissing bulk of Samantha to thank Steliovski who replied that it was an honour and a privilege to bring the old count home.

When Michel asked what Steliovski would be doing next he was told that Samantha would be heading back to her shed for a good wash and a rub down.

‘After that it’s back to the day job,’ he said and handed Michel his card. It read – ALPHONSE STELIOVSKI, BESPOKE LIGHT ENGINEERING AND SYSTEMS INTEGRATION. Michel shook his hand and pocketed the card before moving on to where Fonikopteros and Charles Vortomas waited by a barge of a ground car with well concealed impatience.

The station façade opened onto a rectangular square lined with grand buildings in an architectural style Michel couldn’t identify. The far end of the square was open to reveal a distant horizon where sea and sky merged into a haze. Michel had a chance to take in a central park crisscrossed with neat winding paths, a bandstand and oddly shaped, almost organically shaped shelters and huts before the shaded canopy of the ground car descended around them and locked into place.

And there were the crowds.

Silently watching the cortege go by.

Since they were moving around the square at a sedate speed behind the carriage Michel had plenty of time to examine the people. Either the local culture favoured black or everyone had had plenty of notice so they could pull their funeral suits out of the back of the wardrobe. There were clusters of older men in Imperial Service Greens, standing at attention, medals on their chests and a scattering of younger men in the modernised uniform making up for their lack of medals by sticking out their chests and saluting.

As they proceeded around the square Michel spotted unusual flashes of colour and design amongst the black and green. There a young man wearing a gloriously scarlet and royal blue embroidered waistcoat under his jacket. An old woman with a lavender and silver scarf. A tall young woman with a spray of electric blue and silver hair extensions.

He was so taken with these glimpses that it was a while before he realised that the people, once the count were safely past them, had turned to stare at his ground car. Some of the looks were curious, some were smiling but the overwhelming majority seemed suspicious, wary – closed.

 _What were you expecting?_ he thought. _You’re their future count._

The groundcar reached the open end of the square and turned right onto a road that curved along the side of the hill. The crowd lining the pavement prevented Michel from seeing downslope but the hillside was crowded with buildings while above and ahead rose the surprisingly delicate walls and battlements of Vorfolse castle.

They had travelled no more than three hundred metres when they reached a huge pile of a building, stacked like a layer cake and faced with white stone. It dominated the obviously older, and to Michel’s eyes, better proportioned houses around it.

‘The Hotel Luchshiy vid sur le Mer,’ said Fonikopteros. ‘Finest hotel in the district.’

The horse and carriage stopped in front of an impressively unnecessary flight of white marble steps. Waiting for it in rigid parade formation were half a dozen ancient veterans in dress blues – ready to carry the count up the steps. The crowds outside the hotel were markedly older than the ones in the square, most of the men in uniform both service and local district brigades – firemen, land wardens, road police. At least a couple in light blue with yellow flashes that Michel guessed might be postmen.

‘You’re not going to draw us up in front of the steps are you?’ asked Alex suddenly.

‘Well yes,’ said Fonikopteros. ‘Why do you ask?’

‘I think,’ said Michel and then hesitated. ‘I think it would be disrespectful. Better that Lord Vortomas leave this moment to the Old Count and his people. Better for him to be introduced formerly at the funeral.’ He smiled brightly. ‘Don’t you think?’

Fonikopteros and Charles turned to Michel who had been dreading going up those steps and so nodded enthusiastically.

‘This should be a sacred moment,’ he said and almost lost his composure at the look of exaggerated solemnity on Alex’s face. ‘A chance to say farewell.’

Fonikopteros nodded and pressed the driver intercom button.

‘Anton,’ he said. ‘The garage entrance if you don’t mind.’

The driver smoothly changed lanes and they sailed past the gun carriage. Michel, who was on the opposite side of the groundcar from the hotel, got a close up look at the crowds lining the pavement. One face caught his eye, a young woman – skin nut brown with the sun, a strong nose and black eyes under a mass of black curls that had been loosely pulled back into a ponytail. While her fellow proles kept their eyes on the cortege she’d fixed her eyes on Michel’s groundcar. If he hadn’t known for certain that the canopy was fully silvered Michel would have sworn she was staring right at him.

Then the groundcar was past her and making an abrupt turn into a side entrance that led to a vehicle lift that carried them down to the hotel’s underground garage. Michel felt Alex physically relax as they pulled up in front of the lift tubes and wondered at his friend’s sudden sensitivity to his social embarrassment.

The lift tubes whisked them up to the ‘Imperial’ suite on the top floor where they were met by a keen middle-aged man in a uniform identical to the train stewards who introduced himself as their personal concierge and made it clear that he was to make their stay as comfortable and as pleasant as humanly possible.

Three days ago, thought Michel, some prole threw a beer bottle at me during a performance and yelled – _get off the stage you Vor git_. Back then he hadn’t realised it was possible to become allergic to too much deference.

Fonikopteros and Charles Vortomas bid them farewell but not before the older man had invited them to dine with him that evening.

‘Since the funeral and wake are tomorrow I thought you might appreciate a quiet supper tonight,’ said Fonikopteros.

Michel had been hoping for a quiet evening on his own, well mostly on his own, accepted the offer only because he couldn’t think of a gracious way of saying no. Then their ‘personal concierge’ ushered them into a suite that was as large as Michel’s father’s three storey townhouse in Vorbarr Sultana. The one Michel had grown up in. The one his father had been forced to sell over a decade ago.

There was a small parlour which stood guard for a drawing room with a line of tall sash windows looking out over the sea. Before the concierge could launch into a his, obviously practised, welcoming patter Alex sent him on his way – his visible disappointment mitigated by a generous tip.

Michel opened a door to find a bedroom as large again as the drawing room and sporting a bed the size of a family groundcar. It had an en suite bathroom and separate walk in closet and dressing room.

‘Are we sharing?’ asked Michel trying not to sound too hopeful.

‘No,’ said Alex from across the suite. ‘There’s a second bedroom for me.’ Another door opened. ‘And a third bedroom – ah I see – this is for your valet and/or armsman.’

It was next to a compact but fully equipped kitchenette.

Michel felt unsteady as he found that his luggage was already unpacked and hung neatly in the dressing room. Whoever had done that must have sprinted from the garage to an express lift tube to precede his arrival like that.

‘Is there any alcohol,’ he called plaintively.

‘Plenty,’ said Alex from the drawing room.

‘Thank god for that,’ said Michel.

Alex fixed them drinks while Michel collapsed bonelessly on one of the settees that faced the windows. Accepting a blue cordial that Alex handed him. He tasted it and found it had a kick– although not as much of a kick as he felt he needed.

A shower, clean clothes and a moment of peace and quiet.

Alex seemed enthralled by the forest of bottles that rose from the top of the credenza. He lifted a soda syphon and showed it to Michel.

‘Now this is classy,’ he said.

The syphon had been fashioned from iridescent glass - a sheen of turquoise, a blue and flame orange that shimmered in the late afternoon sunlight. Alex identified it as rainbow glass and said it was probably an antique.

‘Check for a maker’s mark,’ said Michel and Alex upended the syphon to examine the base.

‘The Chekhov Glass Co.’ he said and Michel looked it up on his wrist com.

A quick image comparison revealed that Alex was holding about a thousand marks worth of antique – one that dated back to the Cetagandan occupation. As did, a similar check had revealed, the grand facades that lined the main square but not the hotel that had been built after the liberation.

‘I never realised that the Cetagandan influence was so strong down here,’ said Michel.

‘Not surprising,’ said Alex. ‘It’s not a subject that the locals are going to volunteer is it?

‘Even now?’ asked Michel.

‘Especially now,’ said Alex. ‘The more Galactic we become the more we’re reminded of where we came from and why.’

‘That was deep,’ said Michel. ‘Did you make that up?’

‘No – it’s what they taught us in orientation at Officer Training,’ he said and then, obviously tired of that conversation, turned to look Michel up and down. ‘Fonikopteros quiet little supper,’ he said brightly. ‘What were you planning on wearing.’

*

Fonikopteros had a daughter in her mid-twenties, beautiful, well educated and of marriageable age. He seemed inordinately keen on the last fact and dropped it into the conversation at least twice in the first hour.

‘Of course I have been selfish,’ said Fonikopteros. ‘And have relied on her to head the household in place of her poor departed mother. No doubt soon she will be snapped up.’

Bridget Fonikopteros rolled her eyes at this and gave Michel an apologetic shrug.

The quiet supper took place on the sunset terrace of Fonikopteros’s grand mansion which stood halfway up the eastern promontory. There they had a good view over the old town, Vorfolse Castle on its slightly higher promontory opposite and, of course, the sunset.

Which flashed off Bridget’s strikingly white blonde hair. An unusual colour for a Barrayaran – although back in Vorbarr Sultana plenty of edgy proles and rebellious Vor teens died their hair that colour.

‘It’s not dyed,’ said Bridget suddenly. ‘It’s my natural hair colour – a mutation.’

‘Bridget,’ said Fonikopteros in a sharper tone than Michel judged he meant to use. ‘Please.’

The table went silent. The dark haired woman, a friend of Bridget’s, who’d been strategically placed opposite Alex hid her smile behind her napkin. Her father – like his daughter, Michel suspected, brought in to make up the numbers, concentrated on his steamed mussels.

‘A totally benign mutation,’ she said. ‘But a mutation nonetheless.’

‘Are you so determined to embarrass me at my own table?’ asked her father.

Probably yes, thought Michel.

‘We shouldn’t be afraid of the truth Papa,’ she said and turned her fierce attention on Michel. ‘Lord Vortomas is not afraid of the truth – are you Michel?’

‘My mother,’ said Michel. ‘Used to say that the truth will always outlast any lie.’ He turned to smile at Fonikopteros. ‘Lies are hard to maintain, one is forced to constantly invent new lies to support the old ones. Whereas the truth stands up by itself.’

Fonikopteros and his friend were both staring at him – no doubt seeking to ascertain whether he was serious or not. Michel left them hanging for a moment.

‘Of course she told me that when I was five,’ he said. ‘And it had to do with some missing cakes but I believe the basic principle is sound.’

He turned back to smile at Bridget but for a tiny moment the look on her face was of such utter hatred that Michel nearly toppled backwards off his chair. She quickly smoothed her expression to one of amused indifference.

‘Your mother really said that?’ she asked with deceptive lightness.

That’s one dynastic marriage I won’t have to worry about, thought Michel and was surprised to feel twinge of regret. Dammit he’d liked Bridget.

‘Yes,’ he said. ‘She was a very wise woman.’ It was one of his last memories of her.

*

‘What the hell was in those mussels?’ asked Alex as they lurched unsteadily from Fonikopteros’s ground car to the garage lift tubes.

‘Ouzo,’ said Michel and tripped over a lane marker.

Alex put an arm around his shoulders to keep him steady.

‘And there was red wine in the beef stroganoff – which was definitely not vat grown by the way,’ said Michel.

‘The trifle had a kick as well,’ said Alex and thankfully kept a supporting arm around Michel as they entered the lift tube.

‘Peach brandy I think,’ said Michel.

‘And an aperitif and we put away at least six litres of wine,’ said Alex. ‘God these provincials can drink.’

Michel was disappointed when Alex withdrew his arm as they stepped out of the lift tube and into the outer lobby of the suite. There a slim sandy haired woman in a hotel uniform was waiting. She was young, barely out of her teens, and gave them both a bright, but slightly terrified, smile. Then she bowed belatedly, no doubt suddenly remembering her instructions.

‘My Lord,’ she said. ‘Ser Vorwyn. My name is Gloria your night concierge – if there is anything you require I will be happy to provide it.’ She touched a key on her wrist com and the door to the suite opened.

‘We’re fine,’ said Michel quickly, ‘thanks for asking.’

Once they were in the suite Alex swiftly moved to activate the locking override.

‘Did she say ‘desire’ or ‘require?’ he asked.

Michel who was swaying gently in the middle of the living room had to think about it.

‘I didn’t notice,’ he said.

‘Interesting,’ said Alex and pointed. ‘In case you’re wondering your room is that way.’

‘Do you want a nightcap first?’ asked Michel – sounding desperate in his own ears.

‘Tempting,’ said Alex. ‘But it’s going to be a long day tomorrow. Best not.’

‘You’re right,’ said Michel orientating himself and lurching towards his bedroom. ‘Of course you are.’

I am so shit at flirting, he thought as he shut the bedroom door behind him and fell face first onto his enormously empty bed.


	6. The After Party

The difference between a prole and a Vor funeral, Michel had noticed, lay largely in the level of solemnity. You could hear a proper prole funeral, especially a lower class Vorbarr Sultana prole funeral, a thousand metres away. What with the wailing, the half singing half moaning and the shouting as the crowd of mourners hustled the dear departed into their grave or the municipal crematorium. In some districts there would be a band playing – military marches in some places raucous dance music in others. Then there was that blurry zone where up and coming proles met the more relaxed minor Vors on their way down where everyone tries to ignore Aunty Belinda who is wailing over the coffin as if the occupant owed her money.

Michel’s father’s funeral had been solemn and well attended, a few sobs, some blown noses brought on by the freezing weather and a self-lighting taper that Michel had been relieved to find worked exactly as advertised.

You could have heard a sparrow cough at the funeral of Count Albert Mikis Horatio Vorfolse and Michel lit the taper from the eternal flame that burned at the foot of the Vorfolse family vault. This was a severe granite affair that had obviously been built during a historical epoch where the Counts of Vorfolse feared their bodies would be stolen away by thieves and rivals. It stood in the grounds of the old castle, now a museum, overlooking what was the industrial sprawl of the modern container port that sheltered in the lee of the hill. Despite the bright southern sun there was enough of a sea breeze to keep Michel from sweating into his brand new mourning suit. He’d found it waiting in his dressing room after his morning shower and it was probably the most expensive outfit he’d ever worn.

Either some genius on Fonikopteros’s staff had measured him by eye or, more likely, discretely scanned him with a laser range finder because it fit perfectly. Which was just as well since it was cut in the local style with trousers so tight he’d had to spend fifteen minutes working out which side to dress on. The trousers came with a matching short jacket and a black waistcoat decorated with black on black embroidered panels. The only colour allowed was the collarless shirt in the Vorfolse house colours of sky blue with white accents at cuffs and shoulders.

Overnight the old count had been extracted from his freezer box, wrapped in linen and silk and carried on a bier to the open gate of the castle. Michel, who’d been ferried up in a groundcar, had taken his rightful place behind the bier while Kemp took his - leading the five even older pall bearers.

Once they were assembled in the pale morning sunlight the procession began.

Because he headed the grim parade and, of course, wasn’t permitted to turn his head and gawk like a tourist Michel saw little of the castle but the tidy gravel pathway that led around the outer bailey. He did spot a sign advertising a café and a gift shop beside a door into the citadel and noted that it had been tastefully draped with black crepe. The little hustling poet in his mind wondered whether the countship was getting a fair percentage of the takings.

Behind him the official mourners piled up like an unseen thunderstorm, a threat he sensed only as a distant muttering and an ominous sense of pressure against his back. Michel had no choice but to keep his face forward, his back straight and put one foot in front of the other to the slow steady cadence set by Kemp.

It seemed to go on for a very long time.

Michel’s da had planned his own funeral – had taken advantage of the few weeks of lucidity he’d had before the end to put his wishes in motion.

‘It will be simple and classic and memorable,’ he’d said to Michel during a visit and then amazingly he’d smiled. ‘You see I’m a showman too – we’re not so different. And given that you’re a professional poet my eulogy had better be up to scratch.’

Michel had turned away at that the better to hide his tears – the same tears that pricked his eyes while he carried the taper at this much grander affair. His father would have loved the theatre of this funeral.

He’d asked Fonikopteros at the previous night’s supper whether he would be expected to speak a eulogy at this funeral but no, apparently they didn’t go in for eulogies down south. Instead, once the offering was properly lit Michel’s place on the dais had been taken by a thin young man with the long face and wide mouth of the stereotypical south coaster. He flung open his arms and an astonishing loud lament had emerged for such a narrow chest. Michel had heard this style of singing before, echoing from houses in the Caravansary or being used by prole music groups as an element in their backing tracks but in this setting, live and less than three metres away it was like being bathed in grief, longing and regret.

And amongst the sadness a note of persistent triumph.

We are the Barrayarans, said the song, and you can poison us, lose us, irradiate and kill us but we will persist and when your sword arm is too tired to lift again you will look up to find us standing still.

The song died away and a strange sigh of satisfaction passed across the mourners.

The singer stepped down. Kemp and his prole honour guard carried the bier into the vault and when the old count was safely interred marched smartly out. The vault door was closed and that was it for the dry part of the funeral.

It was something all Barrayaran funerals, from High Vor to the roughest back country prole have in common – that getting the bugger buried was just the preliminary to the most important aspect of the commemoration – the wake.

Michel’s da’s wake had been refined and elegant. Friends and relatives gathered in the public rooms of the Vorbarr Sultana municipal civil service club. There had been cocktails and canapes and fewer than one in ten of the guests had finished the evening asleep under a table.

The epicentre of Count Vorfolse’s wake was the ballroom of the Hotel Luchshiy vid sur le Mer which could fit several thousand guests plus, Michel was assured by Fonikopteros himself, satellite meeting rooms each with their own buffet and open bar. The perpetually suspicious hustler’s voice in Michel’s head asked who the hell was paying for all of this.

And if it was Fonikopteros – what would he expect in return?

Michel spent the first three hours in a receiving line of exactly one shaking hands and being commiserated by an endless stream of minor Vor and aspirational proles. After the first hour his hand began to hurt and he found himself wondering if Vorfolse’s immediate family hadn’t deliberately set him up to avoid this ordeal themselves. Escobar was a long haul but Komarr was less then a week away by fast ship – surely the funeral could have been delayed in time for Pyotr Vorfolse to get back.

Finally Michel managed to snatch a glass of wine which he ostentatiously held in his right hand and either offered his left to be shaken or gave a little comic opera bow and boot click if he thought he could get away with it.

‘What’s with the theatrics?’ asked Alex who’d taken up station behind Michel’s left shoulder the better to offer moral support without actually having to shake any hands himself.

‘Pain,’ said Michel through gritted teeth.

Alex grunted and there was a pause lasting two _I’m so sorrys_ and a _he was a great man in his own way_ before he swapped Michel’s wine for a tumbler full of water.

‘Drink that,’ said Alex. ‘In one go.’

Michel knocked the whole tumbler back – it was water but with a faint medicinal aftertaste.

‘Whatever you do,’ said Alex. ‘Don’t drink any more alcohol.’

The throbbing pain in Michel’s hand quickly receded but so did, he noticed, the universe in general until it seemed that he had become an aquatic creature, a Vor fish in a black suit bobbing gently in a warm tropical sea while a line of sea creatures paraded past like something from a children’s holo.

Michel, who knew a recreational sedative when he’d ingested one, let himself float through the shoal of commiseration fish until a pair of particularly striking specimens in purple, mauve and black swam up to talk at him.

One he recognised as Bridget Fonikopteros the other was a tall blonde whose dark brown eyes and boneless grace reminded him of someone.

‘May I introduce Lady Morgwen Vortomas,’ said Bridget and lent forward and sniffed. ‘What an earth are you on?’ she asked. ‘Not that I blame you but could you at least look interested for our sakes.’

‘Interested in what?’ asked Michel desperately trying to reconnect with reality,

‘In us of course,’ said Bridget. ‘We’re supposed to be making an impression.’

Morgwen Vortomas put a long pale hand on Bridget’s shoulder and squeezed.

‘Not now,’ she said and then to Michel. ‘Count. A pleasure.’

The women bobbed their heads and drifted away. Michel’s hand began to throb again and his mouth felt dry but fortunately the line was almost done. He began to think he might just make it out of the wake alive.

‘There he is,’ cried a voice. ‘The jolly usurper.’

A middle-aged man in a beautiful black suit pushed his way forward to stand before Michel who felt Alex tense.

The man was fit looking and solid in a way that active duty servicemen tend to stay even into their fifties. His brown hair was cut into a severe military fuzz and he carried a cane which, Michel noted, compensated for the marked limp he walked with. He transferred the cane to his left hand and held out his right.

‘Major William Vorfolse,’ he said as they shook hands and Michel fought down a wince. ‘Rightful heir to the countship – as it happens.’

He gave Michel a predatory smile.

‘Perhaps we should have a chat,’ said Michel which seemed to take William by surprise. His look became questioning.

‘A chat yes? Today?’ he asked.

‘Not today,’ said Michel. ‘This is the old count’s day.’

‘Ha!’ barked William. ‘Jolly good I’ll be in touch.’ He limped off towards a group of equally stiffed necked old buffers in parade blues that had been watching from a distance.

‘I’m so sorry,’ said Michel to the next person in line and when he’d received their condolences asked Alex who the hell Major William Vorfolse was.

‘Why do you think I’d know?’ asked Alex.

As Michel went through the motion with the next commiserator he asked himself why he had just assumed Alex would know. He’d seemed so knowledgeable up till then and he’d always been up on the best gossip – still there had to be limits - it’s not like he was ImpSec.

‘I’ll ask about,’ said Alex during the next pause and faded into the background.

He was still missing in action when the line of well wishers abruptly ended and Michel had the forethought to stagger away before anyone else could try to talk to him.

‘Is there a private bathroom,’ he asked a random servant who quickly guided him to a chamber of blue veined marble and tinted glass. A requested glass of hot tea with lemon and honey materialised before Michel had even finished dunking his head under the cold tap. The reminder of the aftermath of gigs past helped steady him although unlike some of the clubs he’d played in here he dried his hair with a fluffy white monogrammed towel. The tea was suitably scalding and sweet. You certainly couldn’t fault Fonikopteros’s staff for their efficiency.

Michel eyed his reflection which stared blandly back.

‘It’s just another gig,’ he said and struck a pose with his hands clasped behind his back. If he could generate the right hauteur then he might protect his right hand which was still throbbing despite the pain killer.

Michel wasn’t that good at hauteur – a family trait in fact. Byerly had once described Michel’s father as one of those big friendly dog like Vor who would welcome you into their house or charge an entrenched position with the same cheerful bonhomie.

‘The true backbone of the Empire,’ he’d said.

Michel felt a sudden flash of retroactive anger at Byerly’s dog comparison and wondered whether the town clown had known that Michel’s father had done exactly that on Komarr. Had the campaign ribbon and medals to prove it.

‘Fuck you Byerly,’ he said and modified his expression to one of good natured friendliness. ‘And how long have you been an aspirational prole? Jolly good.’

He checked his wristcom – it was only just after lunch.

Michel decided that another cup of tea and he might just make it through the afternoon.

Famous last words.


End file.
